Guru Shopping: Are you running the Seeking Race?

In the material world we are all well aware of the rat race. When we get tired of it, we turn to spirituality. But unfortunately, here too, we end up doing something quite similar. We start running the seeking race.

So we move from one guru to another. We shop for one cult to another. From Osho we move to Asaram, then to Ramdev and then to another and then to another. Our house starts piling up with their promotional material, CDs, books. We seek the truth with their philosophies and then someone comes and tells that so and so guru is fantastic and that this guru we are following is a dacoit or a fake.

We pick up our bags and run to the next guru shop. Once again we do spiritual shopping. Then again and again. The peace we were searching is lost completely. We run after Buddha, start chanting. Then we run to a Krishna cult and start dancing. Six months down the line we are the same. Depressed, lost and without hope. Nothing seems to live up to its promise.

We enroll in courses which are even more expensive. We go through 'clever' workshops that immediately demonstrate their effectiveness with brilliant example. We actually feel the change for a few days and then it is over.

What has gone wrong?

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It is the approach that has gone wrong. Instead of internalizing spirituality we have externalized it. We think for magical solutions and like typically successful marketeers, the specialist guru marketing organizations take no time in making a fool of us. They sell us empty concepts at a huge price and because they have no real content they are ineffective. A guru marketing organization cannot have a true guru at its heart, that is for certain.

So what do we have? We have seekers who have been seeking for many, many years and who take pride in telling everyone they are seekers. In real life, would you feel pride in annoucing that you are studying since x number of years even when you are 80 and dying in your cot? It is a failure, not something to rejoice.

So what has gone wrong?

Jesus's 12 disciples saw him performing so many miracles but doubted in him all along. Judas even betrayed him. So why couldnt they see the divinity in Christ? What prevented them? It is the ego. As long as you seek with your ego, all you will end up doing is not giving an end to your seeking but just pampering your ego. You have to seek by surrendering. When you surrender, your heart, the seat of the divine starts guiding you. You immediately see which Guru is true and which is false. Your heart tells you. And once your heart gives you the go ahead, then you have to worship your Guru as God as suggested by Kabir. Why? Because there is God in temples and books and the movies and holy places but as blind men and women we are unable to find the union with him. Only a Guru is able to open our eyes and make us see Him. That is why a guru is to be given a place equal to God. Because they are in human form, we will see many of their flaws. But even God has had his flaws when he took incarnation in human form.

The journey in spirituality begins when we stop seeking and start meditating, using the techniques taught by our guru. Here too many start devising their own ways which is again due to ego. The guru is a master and knows best, leave the instructions to the Guru. Just do as you are told as you did when you were a child. Then A was only for apple. You didnt say A is for Ant then because you didnt know anything. Yet you mastered English with ease. Similarly, to graduate quickly, follow the instruction to the letter.

On the way you will be seized with doubts. Remember that there have been occassions when you doubted if your parents loved you, if your spouse loves you, if your brother's intention is honest, if the friend of yours is not out to exploit you. But you dont give up on them. You keep going till you discover that their was a very good reason they behaved in a way they did.

Be patient.

A guru is one who finally gives you all the instructions to become your own guru and makes you independent. From there on the journey is your own. It is you who decide how high in spirituality you wish to go. The higher you go, you start shedding your ego and your bad habits. Until you are faced with just one or two obstacles. They are the hardest to wither and that is where you face the ultimate test. Most people fail in this last mile, but the determined ones conquer even these obstacles and become from Human beings to Saints.

That is the Nirvana.

So dont just keep on doing Guru Shopping but start Meditating and begin your spiritual journey!Wish you all the very best..... Happy evolution.....